This chapter is sponsored by Natsu. Thank you for your support!
I looked around restlessly, touching my back in panic. My hand reached far enough and still felt my bare skin. I’m doomed. I squeezed my eyes shut like a five-year-old playing hide-and-seek. As if that would make me disappear from here.
Suddenly, I felt a soft touch on my shoulder. When I cautiously opened my eyes, Anais O’Brien was standing with her head facing the crowd, pushing something toward me. It was the shawl she had been wearing earlier.
‘Can I borrow it?’ I asked in a whisper, but O’Brien returned to her seat without answering. It seemed like she was permitting me to do as I pleased. I covered my bare back as much as possible with O’Brien’s shawl. I felt a slight warmth.
Then, out of nowhere, the ark carriage we were riding on rattled and came to a stop. As gazes gathered on him, Keran Illestia, who was the captain, helmsman, and power source all at once, smiled charmingly.
“I’m tired. Can we take a break for a moment? You guys may rest as well.”
Keran’s amber eyes focused only on me, so I was certain he had guessed the disaster that had befallen me.
The improbable Marquis Bolton stepped forward to lighten the not-so-heavy burden of his master. He shouted quickly. “I forgot to put a decorative strap on my scabbard; I’m going to the dormitory!
A few people looked at me curiously as I blended into the crowd. But they were quickly distracted by Kylie’s flashy dance moves.
***
Less than an hour left until the ball, and my dress was as tattered as my heart. I vaguely remembered learning sewing magic in my second year, so I attempted to fix it. However, the needle kept aiming for my nails instead of the fabric, so I gave up on the futile attempt.
I hurriedly searched the room. Brianna Mosley was the kind of person who relieved stress with luxury, so her closet was full of ball gowns, and she wasn’t the kind of person who would make a scene if her roommate borrowed one for an emergency. Bree’s dress would have been the best choice for me, as long as it fit.
On the other hand, the only banquet dress in my closet was the one I received as a gift from Bolton at the beginning of the semester.
Shall I just close my eyes and wear it one more time? I hope Bolton doesn’t take it as a personal attack.
But as I was just thinking about it, someone talked to me.
“Ariel? Why are you still there?”
As the door opened, I turned and saw a small girl holding a pair of shoes in her arms. It was Fatima, one of Bree’s ‘loyalty earned by gold coins’, a day maid who had helped me dress up before. Today, like René Levesque in the famous painting, I rolled my tightly braided hair into circular loops and put it into a bun. It was so securely fastened that not a single strand came loose, even as I fumbled around in agitation.
However, I must have been the only one who thought so. Fatima, with a look on her face,, as if she had seen the fires of hell, ran towards me after roughly organizing Brianna’s shoes.
“Oh, my goodness! Your hair looks like trash! Sit down here quickly.”
“Is it that bad?”
“Yes! You should be glad it was Fatima and not Laurel in charge of cleaning up today. She’s terrible at braids.”
Fatima, who was not good at speaking the common language of the continent, sounds very cute as she stutters her words. But the problem I’m facing now isn’t my hair; it’s my dress. When I showed her my bare backside, Fatima screamed in horror.
“Fuck! Laurel should’ve stayed! Fatima is terrible at sewing!”
“Fatima, Fatima. Ladies don’t use words like ‘fuck’.”
“Fatima is not a lady! Ariel is a lady! Ladies shouldn’t wear dresses that are… like… like this!!”
It seemed like the common language dictionary in her mind didn’t have words like ‘obscene’ or ‘indecent.’. Fatima pounded her chest in frustration, then quickly formed a circle with the thumb and forefinger of her one hand and extended the index finger of her other hand. Before Fatima, who must have just celebrated her twelfth birthday, could make an unholy hand gesture, I thrust the navy blue dress right in front of her eyes.
“So I’m thinking of wearing this.”
“You’ve worn it before. Even if you’re not a noble, you shouldn’t wear the same dress twice in a row. It’s disgraceful.”
“Disgraceful? Fatima, you’re improving with your words.”
“Fatima… Fatima thinks she can solve it.”
Leaving behind a determined statement, Fatima hurriedly left the room. Soon, a loud shout echoed through the hallway. ‘Anyone who has a spare dress!’
The thunderous echo reverberating off the stairs and walls made me feel uneasy. I washed my face dry. Cute and silly Fatima. Unless the sky split in two, there wouldn’t be any spare dresses at the Fitzsimmons Academy at the time of the Love Month Banquet.
But the sky split in two. I praised Fatima for her insight and changed into the perfectly fitted dress she had found. When asked where she got it from, she said a student who wasn’t attending the banquet offered to lend it to me.
If she wasn’t going to attend, why would she have a dress? I wondered, but I didn’t have time to ask. Fatima knew how to braid my hair delicately, but she didn’t know how to multitask. Whenever I spoke to her, she would wrinkle her brow and frown. “Ariel, if you don’t want to have a shitty hairstyle, you need to stay quiet!
I didn’t want to have a shitty hairstyle, so I complied and stayed quiet. After some time, Fatima finished her extra work by inserting a long pin into my scalp, just slightly away from its position.
Originally, I intended to repay Fatima’s hard work with gold coins. However, she was adamant, so I pulled out my secret weapon. The butter cookies from Illestia that I used to nibble on when my roommate was away—the ones stored in the drawer of the student council room’s table.
“Ariel is a little less nice than my mom, but a little nicer than my dad,” said Fatima while munching on cookies.
In my memory, her father was the head of the family, which isn’t praiseworthy. It wasn’t that his personality was bad, but rather that his sense of reality and vitality were distorted, causing him to consistently ruin the world Fatima meticulously created with her talented hands.
“Isn’t that a little broad?”
“Fatima loves her dad. He’s my dad after all.”
The girl shrugs, wearing a rather grown-up expression on her face. I handed the cookie to Fatima, telling her to eat it alone and not to share it with anyone else.
***
The road to the banquet hall was quite messy. Colorful paper cuts made to look like flower petals were scattered everywhere to ignite a festive atmosphere.
Among the paper petals, I found a placard with my name on it. The forearm-length placard was written in paint on black cloth, so when I wrapped it around my wrist and tied it in a knot, it looked like an accessory.
There was no chance that I would be crowned queen, but it wasn’t a bad experience to become a candidate for the ‘Queen of the Banquet’.
Cassandra Bradley liked me to the extent that she would think of me, Ariel Dalton, as someone second only to her idol, Jaden Spencer. Mia Peterson, who can draw very well and has a loud voice, also liked me. Besides that, many voices were shouting my name. Confirming someone’s favor toward me, for whatever reason, made me happy.
“… Miss… Carthy!”
It also made me realize that O’Brien was not as cold-blooded as she seemed. In my memory of nine years at the academy, Anais O’Brien was barely there.
If I hadn’t been a candidate for the ‘Queen of the Banquet’, I wouldn’t have gotten help from her. I wondered if Adam Walsh realized how much I was enjoying the result of his wicked deeds. Stupid Walsh. How stupid can you be if you can’t even make someone miserable properly?
“Miss Elly… McCarthy…!”
I had been hearing faint shouts for a while, but they gradually grew closer and finally reached right behind me. When I turned my head at the familiar name, I made direct eye contact with a man.
He wore glasses and had slightly droopy eyes and a slightly curved nose, which didn’t match harmoniously but gave him a sincere impression. The so-called ‘studious-looking’ face.
His outfit seemed tobe familiar. The dress I’m wearing right now was designed to emphasize the natural shape of the fabric flowing along the body line and was decorated with black lace in a dull pink tone overall. His suit consisted of a black vest and trousers with a dull pink cravat that matched them well.
The recent trend of cravats created by Bolton involved slightly inflating the fabric and tucking the ends inside the vest, but he didn’t do that. The shape of the gently scattered fabric resembled the skirt of my dress.
Every way you look at it, our clothes fit together. If this dress hadn’t been borrowed, it would have been reasonable to assume that we were engaged. Matching clothes was something only partners could do, and being partners at the Love Moon banquet meant that both of them confirmed their positive intentions toward marriage.
But we were not engaged—we were meeting each other for the first time in our lives! When I widened my eyes, he dropped his jaw. The same question came out of our mouths at the same time.
“Who are you?”
“Who… ?”
There was a moment of silence. Eventually, it was the man who spoke first.
“I’m Daryl, Marquis of Cowan. That dress was a gift I gave to Lady McCarthy, so if you’ll excuse me, may I ask your name?”
It was only then that I realized the identity of the ‘student who wasn’t attending the banquet’ mentioned by Fatima. Oh my goodness, it was Elizabeth McCarthy?
You can now sponsor an extra chapter by buying me a Kofi! 2 Kofis = 1 extra chapter.
